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Prostitution should be legalized everywhere. With regulation of course to ensure the protection of the workers and clients.
rather than legalized i think the better word is "uncriminalized" with the sort of support that any workers have. Revolting Prostitutes: The Fight for Sex Workers' Rights was a good read that helped me gain more understanding
Could you explain the semantic difference for me?
Not the one you replied to.
Decriminalise (the proper word) is to stop prosecuting people, it still illegal but not criminal charges would be presented to people breaking the law, maybe civil fines at most.
Basically, the system turns a blind eye on the topic.
Legalise is to change the laws to not only no longer to be a crime, but also recognises that is legal to do it. Usually it involves regulations on the topic.
Take alcohol for example, let’s imagine if you have a store that sells alcohol and the police pays you a visit.
Scenario where is illegal to sell alcohol: The police arrests you and you could face prison.
Same scenario but selling alcohol is decriminalised: The police ignores the alcohol.
Same scenario with being legal to sell alcohol: Police asks four your license, checks that the bottles came through the proper channels (no counterfeit and product of dudose procedence that can pose a health risk) and questions people about if you sell to minors.
People are usually in favour of decriminalising prostitution rather than legalisation cause they want to be left alone. Legalisation would make it like any other job, requiring a permit, pay taxes and probably a license, however it would bring the same protections as any other business (for example, a sex workers could call the police without fear in case is assaulted by a client).
Wouldn't it be best to legalize it altogether then? Who benefits from decriminalization?
Usually the arguments I saw in favour of decriminalisation instead of legalisation are:
I’m in favour of legalisation and proper regulations (I think in professional porn industry actors/actresses are required to be tested periodically), however I also worry about the point 3.
Completely agree and in regards to many now illicit drugs too, I think.
I also think that open relationships should be much more normalized, if not the statistical norm. Just my opinion.
Polyamorus people deserve marriage equality!
I think that it's more complicated than that.
Okay, so there's regulation. Who bears the cost of compliance? What happens when a sex worker is out of compliance with safety regulations, e.g., they are infected with HIV and aren't informing clients or using barriers? How do you handle that?
Keep in mind that a lot of people turn to sex work on an irregular basis, to pay for rent, drugs, or similar; very few of them are going to willingly go through any kind of licensing process, and most will lack the ability to pay for a license.
Yeah you can’t really require a license to do something like that, it is impossible to enforce. What you can do is offer safety systems. Free protection, free testing, safe harbor when needed, a safe space to work. People want to be safe, if you make it free and easy they’ll use those services and our societal cost goes down.
I think that, in order to make it work, you also need to have a national single-payer healthcare system so that when someone does get infected with an STI, they can get treatment without breaking their bank account. But you also need to ensure that they aren't unable to pay their expenses during a course of treatment, and you certainly don't want prostitutes infected with HIV working until their viral load is so low that they're effectively unable to infect other people. (And yes, free PREP would help, but given that a number of sex workers are prostituting themselves in exchange for drugs, I don't think that worrying about exposure to HIV or getting PREP is very high on their priority list.)
I do think that a bare minimum would be for cops to have to take reports of sexual assault against prostitutes seriously. ...Which would require major criminal justice reform...